ABSTRACT
The Brexit vote in June 2016 and the American presidential election in November 2016 demonstrated that people in the UK, the US and probably in many other countries are dissatisfied with the current state of political, economic and social life, want to be heard and are demanding radical change. Countless reports on the financial crisis, leadership scandals, wars, poverty and environmental disasters suggest that the socioeconomic, geopolitical and cultural-spiritual challenges of our times are interconnected (Guattari 2000), and today’s business and political practices are unsustainable and destructive (Zsolnai 2011).
When large corporations can monitor their own ethical conduct, “corporate business ethics are no barrier to rampant pursuit of business self-interest through well-orchestrated and large scale conspiracies involving lying, cheating, fraud and lawlessness” (Rhodes 2016, 1503). Large corporation cannot and should not be treated as an “isolated, ethically self-sufficient individual” (Lozano 2000, 2) that is capable of controlling and monitoring its behavior. Corporations engage in nominally ethical practices to present an image of a moral righteousness (Hanlon 2008), build a positive, trustworthy image and make a case for “corporate sovereignty” (Barkan 2013). Modern corporations are perceived as “a special kind of moral personality for which the law has made extensive accommodation” to allow them to acquire “a power of sovereignty over the public” (O’Mellin 2006, 201, 203).
